


Losing Has Never Tasted So Sweet

by Lookafterlou1234



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marauder's Era - Fandom
Genre: But I hope you like it anyway, F/M, Jily for the win, Marauder's Era is always fun, and it's kinda terrible, so woohoo, this popped into my head late last night so I wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:06:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lookafterlou1234/pseuds/Lookafterlou1234
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Potter just lost a Quidditch match for Gryffindor, and nothing anyone says or does can get him to come out from the boy's dormitory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing Has Never Tasted So Sweet

James Potter planned on never leaving the Gryffindor boy's dormitory ever again. Well, maybe he'd leave occasionally, for the odd trip to the kitchens and the toilet and maybe when the summer holidays eventually rolled around. But as of right now, James was never going to show his face to his fellow Gryffindors again.

James, in his seventh year at Hogwarts, had lost the first Quidditch match of the season. To Slytherin. By 200 points. It was all because of the blasted weather too. If it hadn't been such a rainy November day, James might have been able to see that bloody Snitch and catch the thing before the Slytherin Seeker, a big bumbling oaf named Smith (James was pretty damn sure he had some giant blood in him to top it all off.)

And okay, maybe James had been nailed in the face by a Bludger because a certain red head was drawing his attention from the stands. But it wasn't like he was trying to look at her! Her hair made her stand out, that was it. And she had been cheering James on pretty loudly....which she had never done, in all their years at school. James couldn't fight the feeling that something had changed between them, that Lily Evans' opinion of James Potter had improved for the better. Maybe Lily even liked him a little bit? They'd been spending more and more time together because of being Head Girl and Head Boy and she certainly seemed more friendly. 

James was too tired and too morose to think about that. He flung himself down on his bed and pulled the Invisibility Cloak over his body, planning and hiding up here for the rest of the evening and possibly for the rest of his life. He couldn't bear to see his friends' disappointed faces, and he didn't want the other members of the Quidditch team to discuss the match with him.

"Ugh." James groaned, shoving his face in his pillow so hard that the bridge of his glasses pressed against his nose painfully. He wondered how hard it would be to suffocate this way. Probably not very.

His morbid thoughts were interrupted as he heard footsteps against the hardwood floor, coming towards him. He recognized that gait; a slow thumping with the swish of untied shoelaces dragging against the ground. Sirius.   
"Go away Padfoot." James groaned aloud. "Nothing you do or say can make me come out. Trust me, Remus and Peter already tried. Remus offered to do my Charms homework for a week, and Peter said he'd nick me some Pumpkin Pasties from the kitchens."  
"Well, I certainly have no bribe to offer you." Sirius replied, the smirk evident in his voice.   
"I just came up here to say that you're being a bit of an arse. Very melodramatic of you, Potter."  
"What?" James said indignantly, his head popping out from underneath the Cloak to glare at his best friend. "Sirius, that's unfair!"   
"You're hiding up here, like the effing Moaning Myrtle. You need to go downstairs and show everybody that we can recover from this. And in case you've forgotten, you're the captain of the team, remember? They need a pep talk from you or something, mate."  
"No." James said flatly, going underneath the Invisibility Cloak once more. Sirius sighed deeply and attempted to tug it away but James clung on tight, refusing to budge an inch. He'd thought his best friend had given it up when the resistance on the other end of the Cloak ceased but then he felt it come back, stronger than before.

He looked up and saw that Sirius had silently morphed into Padfoot, a huge, black shaggy beast of a dog. In the middle of the boy's dormitory. His jaws were clenched around the end of the Cloak, playing tug-of-war with James.   
"For the love of Merlin, change back!" James hissed. "Anyone could see you!"   
Sirius did nothing but dig his hind paws into the ground and tug harder, the defined muscles in his chest rippling.  
"Padfoot, you're going to rip it, and I definitely don't know the spell to mend Invisibility Cloaks!"   
James let go, too worried that his prize possession would get destroyed, and then the Cloak flew behind the dog, hitting the wall with a thump. Sirius padded over to James and leapt up onto the bed beside him. He crawled over to James and put a huge paw on his chest, tilting his head and looking at him worriedly. Despite the animal form, the eyes that looked back into James' were amazingly human.   
"I really don't want to go back down." he mumbled. "Just not yet."   
Sirius leaned over and licked James" face, as if saying "Yeah yeah I get it." He hopped off the bed and sauntered away. James wiped the dog's saliva off his cheek, distantly wondering if this meant Sirius had just kissed him and fervently hoping not.   
"Fetch the Cloak for me, there's a good boy." James said wryly, looking at his best friend. And just like that, Sirius was back again, flipping James the bird.   
"As if." the boy said, walking out of the dormitory and back down into the common room. 

James groaned and heaved himself out of bed, grabbing the Cloak and shoving it under his pillow as he lay back down. He tugged the curtains around his four-poster bed closed, so anyone coming up would think he was sound asleep. And then he just laid there, listening to the sounds of the castle. Hogwarts was usually so full of life, but right then it felt almost silent. The only noise James could hear was the wind whistling past his window. 

Well, that and yet another set of footsteps.  
"Sirius, shove off." James said loudly. "I'm not coming down."   
But the footsteps kept coming and James listened closely. It actually didn't sound like Sirius and his heavy footed trudging. This gait was light and quiet, as if the person was putting their feet down gently against the ground. It was practically as gentle as a doe's...

"Lily?" James said incredulously as the curtains of his bed were pulled back and Lily Evans herself was standing before him.   
"What in the world are you doing here?"   
"To relieve you from your self inflicted exile and misery." the red haired witch said cheerily, sitting down on the bed across from him.   
"I see." James said awkwardly, his stomach tight with nerves.   
He looked at Lily and saw that she was smiling, the adorable dimples in her cheeks as huge as ever.   
"Why're you so happy right now?" he asked.   
"That depends, why are you so miserable right now?"  
"Because I just completely failed at that Quidditch match."  
"It's no big deal, it's the first one of the season." Lily said reasonably.   
"That doesn't make it any better!"  
"You lose House Points all the time, James. What makes this any different, really?"  
"Because...because it's Quidditch!"  
"And?"  
"It's the only thing I'm really good at!" James burst out. "Like up in that air, hearing everyone cheer, is the only time I feel like I'm not putting on some big act of behind the cool popular guy everyone likes. It's the only time I really feel that way."   
"That does make sense." Lily replied. "It's not true, but it makes sense."   
They lapsed into silence again, James staring down at the patterned duvet on his bed. Lily reached over and touched his cheek and James stiffened at the sudden contact.   
"I was worried you'd broken some bones when that Bludger hit you." she said softly. "My heart nearly leapt out of my chest."

The James from last year would've just laughed this off or made some smart aleck comment like "Bet you were too worried about this pretty face, huh Evans?" But James wasn't that guy anymore. He didn't want to be, because it'd obviously never worked with Lily, and Lily was the only one he'd ever truly wanted. He'd been mad for that girl from almost the second he'd met her and James knew that wouldn't ever go away. So he took a deep breath and said,   
"It was my fault, really. I wasn't paying attention because I was watching you in the stands. You looked really--uh really good from where I was. Like your hair was so bright despite the weather and it stuck out and made me smile and stuff and then the Bludger nailed me."   
James knew he was babbling like an idiot, but Lily laughed softly and took his hand, squeezing it tight. She looked him right in the eyes and he felt like he was going to drown in her green gaze. Her eyes had always bewitched him, more than anything else.   
"You have really, really beautiful eyes, you know that?" James said nervously, realizing that they'd somehow gotten closer, barely an inch of space between them. Lily smiled softly and James could smell her apple shampoo coming from her hair. In sixth year, he'd smelled the very same thing coming from his Love Potion and in that second, he'd realized that he was a complete goner.   
"When I was younger, people made fun of me for them." Lily said. "Called them 'Witch's eyes.' Which, considering my circumstances now, is kinda funny."  
"I think they're beautiful." James whispered. "I think you're beautiful, Lily." 

And suddenly they were kissing. Lily had closed the distance between them and pressed her mouth to his. James's eyes flew open and then he reached up and ran his hand through her hair, through the ginger locks that he'd always longed to touch but had never had the privilege to. Lily rested a hand on his chest and James was sure she could feel his racing heart but he didn't care. Because he was kissing Lily Evans and that was basically all he'd wanted for the past seven years. 

They broke apart and stared at each other in shock from a few moment. Then they both giggled nervously and Lily stood up, offering James her hand.   
"Come along, Prongs. Let's go downstairs."  
"P-P-Prongs?" he sputtered in amazement. "How do you possibly- we never told- I- what?"  
"James Potter, did it ever occur to you that I've been watching you as long as you've been watching me?" 

When James Potter finally made his way back into the Gryffindor common room, none of his classmates could understand why he couldn't wipe that stupid grin off his face.They'd just been flattened in the very first Quidditch match of the season! But Sirius, Remus, and Peter all knew that it might have something to do with how Lily Evans' hand was all wrapped up in his.


End file.
